Pinterest Gets Real with New iPad, iPhone, and Android Apps

Gone are the days of art-directed photographs that inspire both lust and feelings of inadequacy. Pinterest wants you to move away from your desk and start making your pins a reality, at least that's the idea behind the newly redesigned apps that the company released on August 15. The mobile landscape offers an opportunity to create more realistic snapshots of flea market finds, half-finished garden projects, and vacations actually experienced instead of dreamed about.

Pinterest wants you to move away from your desk and start making your pins a reality, at least that’s the idea behind the newly redesigned apps that the company released on August 15.

“It may sound funny, but our goal has never been to keep you online,” explained the company in a blog post. “Instead, we want to inspire you to go offline and do things that you love. Today, we’re making it easier to take your inspirations with you by providing new apps for Android, iPad and iPhone.”

These apps are not for browsing and pinning things from the Internet. The explore, follow, and re-pin functions are perfectly smooth – within the community, there are still myriad sources of inspiration – but the “create a pin” button only gives users two choices: take a picture yourself or find one on your phone.

Gone are the days of art-directed photographs that inspire both lust and feelings of inadequacy. The mobile landscape offers an opportunity to create more realistic snapshots of flea market finds, half-finished garden projects, and vacations actually experienced instead of dreamed about.

It’s both brilliant and sad. Those of us who go to Pinterest online for an escape might now be confronted with real images of birthday parties with wrapping paper and crumbs on the floor as well as perfectly sculpted cupcakes. Dim lighting, blurriness, and bad taste are to be expected.

But it’s an opportunity for the actual crafters who frequent the site to record their accomplishments and support their friends. To download the app for iPad, iPhone, or Android, click here: Apps.Pinterest.com